Bone Marrow Transplants

What Ethical Considerations should Be addressed when Paying For Bone Marrow

Complete 2 page APA formatted essay: Paying for Bone Marrow.

This is mainly due to ethical reasons as ratifying it would cause many unscrupulous individuals to take advantage of this by finding ways of illegally harvesting organs from perfectly healthy people.

The present reality is that there are many patients who could benefit from bone marrow transplants and who may end up dying of their ailments before they can find suitable donors. Most of these individuals are from ethnic minorities. There are some in the medical community who feel that making it possible for people to benefit financially from donating their bone marrow will make more citizens consider the possibility of becoming donors. This would also increase the possibilities of patients being matched with tested donors and create a situation in which the donor and recipient benefit from the operation. This disables the black market which trades on body organs and basically supports a situation in which the poor are pressured to donate their organs. Moreover, this could create a situation where fewer people consider the possibility of contributing their bone marrow as a selfless act because they will feel that it has been commercialised and so is more available to patients from all social classes.

Making it possible for people to pay for bone marrow would also transform human beings into commodities that can be used for business practices. Even though it would create a situation in which the bone marrow trading operations of the black market cease to exist, it would also cause there to be more pressure on poor people to combat their present situations by selling their bone marrow. According to Tilney, it could also cause a situation in which human beings are bred for the specific purpose of using their organs for trade (Tilney, 47). It has been argued that there are many nations in which poor people are paid for donating their blood on a regular basis. and that selling the bone marrow